


to live through times like these

by soundthebells (kosy)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Horror, I promise, M/M, Post-Apocalyptic, Post-MAG160, Temporary Character Death, hurt/comfort elements, s5 update: [sighs loudly and removes 'canon compliant' tag]
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-22 09:01:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22680346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosy/pseuds/soundthebells
Summary: “You need to eat more than I do,” Jon insisted. “Please, Martin, just take it.” Brandishing a bag of trail mix. He could see how Martin’s eyes tracked it, subconscious and starved. But of course his mouth was set in a thin, firm line, and Jon knew he was fighting a losing battle.Martin grimaced at him, arms locked at his sides. “Yes, I do, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to eat at all.” They didn’t have time to argue—it was getting dark and they needed to get out of the half-burned town, find some sheltered clearing in which to light a fire before it got Dark—and Martin knew that just as well as he did. So it was a battle of wills, and Jon has always, always been worse at that particular contest. They wouldn’t find anything better in this shop, Jon was certain of that much, and he couldn’t remember the last time he saw Martin eat.“Fine. We’ll share, then,” he snapped, and he shoved the trail mix into his bag. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Martin smile.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 82
Kudos: 292





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> listen i've written like six fluff fics... i've earned the obligatory sad one. but i promise everything will be fine (at least relative to canon, i guess). hope you enjoy nonetheless! <3

It’s Jon’s fault. 

They’d been making decent time to London since life split apart at the seams. Daisy had kept go-bags under the kitchen sink and crammed beneath the bed, so the amount of time spent, let’s say, _supplementing_ _their provisions_ was kept to a minimum. He and Martin weren’t nearly as young as they used to be, and they were a great deal more scarred, but they managed about eight miles on a good day, walking as quickly as they could, traveling not quite on the main roads but still within view of them so as not to get lost. It felt too risky to do otherwise—the roads seem uncomfortably exposed under the open, dark sky, even in a world where everybody was always watched, but wandering too far from civilization felt dangerous in a way little else did. Not so many Fears out in the empty woodlands, but plenty of scared, angry humans. They stopped in cities when they could, when the heavy weight of the Eye lessened just a little and the crack and groan of the sky sounded more distant. It was getting harder to find unspoiled food, a month after everything, but Jon didn’t need quite so many calories as he should have. His body was still falling apart at least a little bit, but whatever was inside him was doing just fine, seemingly unaffected by the fact that he was sustaining himself primarily on whatever water hadn’t been touched by the Corruption and the dry goods they could find at the few corner stores that hadn’t been looted yet. He gave Martin first pick of food, _obviously_ he did, but that was the trouble with being the—well, whatever he was—of a stubborn bastard like Martin Blackwood: he would never actually take it. 

(“You need to eat more than I do,” Jon insisted. _“Please,_ Martin, just take it.” Brandishing a bag of trail mix. He could see how Martin’s eyes tracked it, subconscious and starved. But of course his mouth was set in a thin, firm line, and Jon knew he was fighting a losing battle. 

Martin grimaced at him, arms locked resolutely at his sides. “Yes, I do, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to eat at all.” They didn’t have time to argue—it was getting dark and they needed to get out of the half-burned town, find some sheltered clearing in which to light a fire before it got Dark—and Martin knew that just as well as he did. So it was a battle of wills, and Jon has always, always been worse at that particular contest. They wouldn’t find anything better in this shop, Jon was certain of that much, and he couldn’t remember the last time he saw Martin eat. 

“We’ll share, then,” he snapped, and he shoved the trail mix into his bag. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Martin smile.) 

That was Martin, mulish and calculating and entirely too concerned with Jon’s health. So he really wasn’t all that surprised when, after Jon caught some shrapnel to the chest from a teenage boy claimed by the Desolation, Martin insisted that they stay in a safe place to rest for a couple days. Martin had been hurt too, just ten days into their pilgrimage, around the time memories of the safehouse weeks had finished fading into pleasant but implausible dreams. 

(Less than dreams, really. Wisps of the dead garden ‘round the front of the cottage Jon had hoped to recultivate come springtime, of rain pattering on a thatched roof, of laundry and dishes (he washed while Martin dried. Or was it—?), of sleeping through the day and blinking, disoriented, at the late afternoon sun streaming in through the bedroom window.)

Martin had twisted an ankle fleeing what they assume to be the Buried, everywhere they tried to run opening up into a steep ravine of wet mud. A man racing in the same direction, blond and pale and thin, fell, and the ground sealed itself over his head (though they could still hear the choked-off scream, because of course they could). They had run for so long, nearly a half hour, burning through the kind of energy only fear can give you, and Jon could _feel_ them exiting this Fear’s domain, the gulches opening slower, shallower. And then, out of _nowhere_ , Martin’s foot fell into just a little divot in the earth and he tumbled to the ground. Petty retaliation from a momentarily defeated Entity, but no less effective. He screamed, and Jon froze for a second, that little part of us that is still a scared animal screaming to _get out, get out before it takes you too._ But there was nothing for it; he raced back and hauled Martin to his feet and they just kept running, Martin letting out these short gasps of pain with every step, and when they finally sat down there were little tear-streaks cutting through the grime that encrusted them constantly now. Still, that next day, Martin insisted that they keep moving forward. Jon had fought with him on that point until Martin pulled himself to his feet, teeth gritted, and started hobbling away. He’d practically needed to wrestle him back down into the sleeping bag they shared (it was getting colder with each passing day, and they were afraid the Lonely would pull them apart again, and, well, they just _wanted_ to). They stayed another full day, Martin fuming at first but eventually acquiescing and allowing Jon to take care of him for once. The twist healed far faster than was strictly natural, which frankly upset Martin more than the injury itself. It’s been like that, since the end of the world. Those marked by the Entities are stronger. For the given definition of strong. It feels as though his nerves are burning all the time, skin hypersensitive like when you catch the flu. Loud noises are physically painful, bring on migraines that won’t leave for anything. He knows things he shouldn’t. Everything, all the time, is too much. And while Martin may not be an Avatar, he’s been claimed by plenty of Fears to some capacity. So they’re on the road again just two days after that vicious twist. Relatively easy fix, all told, though they’d ended up stealing a cane from a hospital in the next city for when his ankle started acting up again.

It’s different with the shrapnel wound. 

The Eye was doing its utmost to ensure that its Archivist wouldn’t die at any cost. So when the burning metal sunk itself into Jon’s chest, right into the weak point where he should have had ribs to protect himself, he wasn’t killed instantly. 

It might have been kinder if he had. But he wasn’t. He passed out, certainly. Came to on the ground floor of an abandoned apartment building—Jon and Martin didn’t really make a habit of going through doors that weren’t already swinging open these days—with Martin kneeling over him. The pain hit first, sharp and hot and throbbing through his entire body, and he almost lost consciousness again. Martin had his teeth bared and his hands were wet with blood that Jon quickly realized was his. On instinct, he hissed in agony and tried to curl inward only for Martin to push him back down to the ground. 

“Stay _still,”_ he growled, and he went back to the ugly work of extracting bits of metal from Jon’s torso. It hurt like hell, a vicious kind of pain, like Jude Perry’s handshake but everywhere, dug into his muscle and shattering bone. By all rights he should have been dead. 

They passed a couple minutes like that in silence, Jon trying not to move, trying to bite back shouts of pain. “Your— _fuck_ —your bedside manner really leaves something to be desired, Martin,” he gritted out through the burning in his lungs and the dryness of his throat. 

Martin huffed out a shadow of a laugh despite himself, shaking his head. “You know, Jon, I’m _really_ hoping I don’t have too many chances after this to improve it.” There was sweat on his brow and blood smeared over his cheekbone like a grotesque blush and his fingers were shaking but he kept working, focused and capable, and Jon loved him for it in the quiet, fierce way he always seemed to. They had a First Aid kit from the cabin and it had been put to good use, but the supplies were dwindling far more rapidly than they’d hoped. Jon could see it instantly when Martin ran out of gauze but didn’t say anything, just watched as he pulled one of his own cleaner shirts from his backpack and began, methodically, to tear it up. 

“We’ll get another kit as soon as we can,” Martin told him. They hadn’t gotten the chance. 

(A whisper against Martin’s chest as the firelight dwindled and morning crept towards them: “Do you think there’s a God, Martin?” He’d startled at that, the uncharacteristic question in its vulnerable fear.

“I think there’s about fifteen of them, Jon,” he said wryly. _And they all hate us._

An irritated exhale, a puff of warm air Martin could feel against his too-thin hoodie. “You know what I mean.” 

He thought about it. It hadn’t been something he’s considered in a long, long while. 

“I do. I—I’m pretty sure I do.” 

“How?” It was a genuine question, thin and desperately hopeful. Martin wished he knew what Jon wanted so he could just give it to him. Make everything okay, if only for a second.

“Well, I have to believe I’m going _somewhere.”_ He was raised religious, and it had stuck just enough for him to think about an After and some force that maybe smiles down on humanity sometimes. Well. He didn’t know where God fit into... all this. The Fifteen, the apocalypse. But he didn’t know what else to do other than keep hoping. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” and a fist balled up in his sweatshirt for emphasis. There was just a hint of compulsion in the words. But it was nothing that Martin could ever hope to really follow, not in this world. Instead, he tipped Jon’s head up with a knuckle to kiss him, undemanding and easy, and Jon kissed back. This thing between them, it was new, relatively speaking. Natural and unnatural. Lying there in the wilderness under stars that hadn’t yet gone out, Martin was almost happy.)

Even with the antiseptic and bandages and painkillers, there was very little the Eye could do to instantly repair internal bleeding and cracked bone. Jon had no doubt that he would live through it, but for the time being they were well and truly stranded. They set up camp there in the lobby, Martin on edge the whole time—he’d always preferred sleeping in clearings or under trees or in gulleys by the side of the road. Places that were open but not too open. Places where they could run or fight or hide, depending on what they needed. The apartment complex was—not like that. It was cramped. Dull gray light streamed in through the still-half-opened glass door, barely illuminating the mess that had once been a perfectly nice lobby. A desk smashed to pieces, furniture with huge claw marks, broken windows. Jon took it all in through a haze of painkillers and the dull ache in his chest the pills couldn’t quite suppress. 

“Thanks,” he managed later, after Martin painstakingly cleared the assorted rubble off a patch of hardwood and moved him over to lay him down on their sleeping bag. Trying to maneuver him inside was out of the question, so Martin had piled their thickest jackets on top of them both and held him loosely, carefully, in his arms. He was so _warm._ Jon wasn’t like that at all. Even before he stopped really needing blood he had run cold, always had to wrap himself in approximately eight layers of outerwear to brave the walk from the Tube to the Institute. 

Martin pressed his cheek against Jon’s, reassuring and gentle. “For what?” 

Jon sighed, shut his eyes. It was often easier with his eyes closed. Honest communication and also general life. Especially after the Beholding had split him and life itself wide open with sight. 

“Don’t know. All of it.” He let out a laugh that seemed to scrape against the raw flesh of his throat on the way out. “For staying. For taking care of me. I know how much you want to keep moving, and I’m just _deadweight_ now—” 

He cut him off sharp at that, fingers tightening briefly around Jon’s shoulder and hip. _“Jon._ I’m not—don’t thank me for—for _staying_ with you. God, I’d do that any time, through anything. It’s not some _labor_ being forced upon me. I’m with you. We’re _together._ I can’t believe you’d actually think—” The agitation was shuddering off of him in waves and his voice was sharp with hurt, and Jon made, unconsciously, a soft noise of distress that had Martin taking a slow, uneven breath and letting it out. “Sorry, just. I don’t want you to ever think I could do anything else other than love you.”

“Alright,” Jon whispered, and he levered himself up with an arm to take Martin’s face in his free hand and kiss him, long and deep. He broke off after an endless moment, all warmth and breath and humanity. He didn’t pull back far, just enough to take in the flutter of Martin’s lashes against his cheek, the unruly mess of hair, the stubble that scratches against his palms. 

“You’re going to reopen the _massive goddamn hole_ in your chest,” Martin protested, and Jon saw how his face was flushed in the light of the lantern, and he chuckled, quiet in the darkness of the lobby. 

“Maybe so, but you love me for it,” Jon told him, and Martin rolled his eyes. 

_“Maybe so, but_ if I have to stitch your skin back together again I’m going to strangle you in your sleep,” but he tucked a long curl of dirty hair back behind Jon’s ear and smiled at him so lovingly Jon could’ve wept. Which kind of undercut the threat. 

“I love you,” Jon said, later that night. It was dark outside and dark inside too. He was tucked in his usual place against Martin’s chest, nose pushed up into the crook between his neck and his shoulder; they curled in toward each other like a pair of parentheses. It was better that way, waking from a nightmare only to find Martin, breathing and warm and alive with a pulse in his throat that he could feel. He smelled like sweat and grime and blood and fear, yes, but there was a certain _Martin_ to it all that made it excusable and even comforting. Jon had seen him hack apart a Flesh monster with a machete the length of his forearm in a matter of seconds, so there wasn’t much that could scare him off of Martin, really. People would always underestimate him. He couldn’t see how. Martin Blackwood was soft and kind and fiercely compassionate and cared so much about people it hurt. He was also vicious and clever and steely and tenacious enough to survive _anything_. These weren’t opposing facts; it was all twisted up together in him so intrinsic and beautiful Jon could hardly look at him sometimes, and loving him was the easiest thing Jon had ever done. 

Martin smiled. Jon Knew it but also _knew_ because that was just what Martin did. He could imagine it, the exact way his lips would quirk up at the edges, how his eyes would crinkle at the corners. There’d be no stopping him from getting worry lines carved deep into his forehead, not after all this, but God, Jon wanted to be part of the reason he got wrinkles from smiling, too. 

“I love you too.”

That next morning, Martin checked his injuries. They hurt less, but when Jon tried to stand his legs wobbled and his chest hurt so much he couldn’t breathe, and he might’ve collapsed were it not for Martin propping him up and then laying him down gently on the ground. It’s the boredom that really gets him that day. He’d resurfaced from the haze of pain and was now very much just sitting on the floor of a wrecked apartment complex lobby waiting for the day to pass. Worse, it was a bad Beholding day too; his mind is full of jagged edges and things he doesn’t want to See, probably his side of the bargain for the Eye allowing his body to heal so quickly. He covered his eyes with the makeshift blindfold (another torn scrap of t-shirt; they burned through them fast) he kept in his bag and leaned against the wall and did his best to stay present. Martin understood or at least tried to. At some point, he pulled a book from his bag and started reading aloud—an anthology of 20th-century poetry. It was a massive tome, weighed far too much to keep lugging it around the wasteland as they did, but it was the only thing Martin had taken with him to Scotland, and he’d snatched it off the shelf before they’d fled the safehouse and, well. It was nice. Good to focus on when Jon could feel himself drifting, starved and agonized, out of his own body. It made both of them feel more human. Blessedly devoid of Keats or anything like him, too, but then again Jon would probably have listened to anything so long as it kept him from hearing the screams of people being torn apart echoing through his skull. So long as it was Martin.

(In the coming weeks, he will wonder if there’s anything he could have possibly done differently that day. Interrupted Martin’s lulling, murmured recitation of some horrid love poem that Jon couldn’t help but still be touched by. Gritted his teeth through the terrible pain in his ribs, his lungs, his gut. Ran. Just—took Martin and ran. He will pick over every moment, searching for what he could change, what he could make right if he could do it all again.)

“...that was, uh, Audre Lorde’s ‘Movement Song’. Do you want another?” 

Jon reached out a hand—he needed, for some reason, to be touching Martin right then, but then again when didn’t he—and he took it. “I, uh. Could you just talk to me, actually?” It came out deeply pitiful in a way that made Jon’s face twist up a little in disgust, but Martin didn’t laugh at him, just scooted closer so they were leaned up against the wall together. 

“About what?” 

“Anything.” 

Martin made a noise of acknowledgement and then another of contemplation. “Right. Okay. Well, uh… do you know how I got that scar on my hand?” Jon knew the one. Barely visible by then, but it was still there, silvery against light brown skin if you looked at it in the right light. He hadn’t seen it the first time Martin had shown him, back at the safehouse when they were comparing the atlases of hurt that their bodies had become. It had taken a full three minutes of Martin insisting _it’s right there, look! Really!_ before he’d finally squinted just right and saw it, an unassuming, jagged semicircle of pale skin. 

“No,” Jon said honestly. He hadn’t asked about that one’s origin, and he hated the idea of using Beholding to root around in Martin’s brain to find out anything he didn’t want to tell him. 

He chuckled next to Jon’s ear, simultaneously too loud and soothing in its familiarity. “It’s really not a depressing story. Okay, so, I was a kid, right? And I loved dogs _so much._ My absolute favorite animal.” 

“Ah,” Jon intoned. 

He could hear the smile in Martin’s voice as he continued. “Oh, d’you see where this is going? My uncle, my father’s brother, had this dog, Charlie. A big, mean bastard of German Shepherd, the kind of dog that chases kids around ‘cause they remind them too much of prey. So when we went to visit my uncle, my cousins would always tell me to look out for this dog—he was an outdoor dog, so as long as I kept indoors, I wouldn’t be bothered by him. But, again, I _loved_ dogs. And I’d gotten it into my head that because I loved dogs, dogs would love me, too. So I went looking for this dog. And when I tried to pet him, he _bit_ my hand! Worst pain I’d ever felt in my whole life, and my uncle wouldn’t stop scolding me for it. But Charlie respected me after that.” Jon laughed, incredulous. “Honestly! He did! I swear, that dog was my best friend,” and then he pauses, says more quietly, “well, ‘til my dad left. Didn’t see much of Charlie once my mother cut everyone on that side off.” He gave Martin’s hand a comforting squeeze, and Martin dropped his face against Jon’s temple and smiled so he could feel it even if he couldn’t see it, curved against his skin. “S’alright though, really. More funny than anything else at this point. I’m more of a cat person anyway.” 

He rubbed his thumb over a knuckle. “After all this, d’you want to get one?” 

“Hm?” 

Jon shifted, curled closer to Martin. “A cat. Would you get one with me?” 

An incredulous pause, and then Martin grinned, genuine and bright, he could _feel_ it. “Yeah. And a cottage, this time one without a cabinet originally intended for storing dead bodies in. And a kitchen with a proper oven. And a birdfeeder.” 

“And a garden,” Jon interjected. “Don’t forget the garden.” _That would be nice,_ he thought. Kneeling in the soil, working with his hands. Coaxing some life out of the earth. Recompense, in some way, for the damage he’s done here. And then he would bring the vegetables he planted inside to Martin, and they would cook dinner with what they’d grown, there in a perfectly cramped kitchen with a skylight. 

“‘Course,” Martin agreed easily. “And a garden. And we’ll get real, normal-person jobs.”  
  
“Well, let’s not be unrealistic,” Jon deadpanned, and Martin shoved him gently, not enough to even destabilize him. Just—enough. 

They sat in silence for a while, holding hands. 

“Do you really think there’ll be something after all this? I mean, a life for us?” Martin’s voice was barely audible, just next to his ear. 

Jon thought about it for hardly more than a second. “Yes. I do.” 

Three hours later, Martin was dead. 

* * *

_She wouldn’t have caught up with us,_ Jon thinks, _if I’d just kept walking._ _If we had left._ Which is true. But Martin wouldn’t have let him. Would have wrestled Jon back to the sleeping bag and held him down until he gave up, because that was what Jon did for him, and that’s Martin for you. Would have made sure he didn’t move and hurt himself, even if it meant Jon sank sharp teeth into his arm, even if he’d screamed and clawed and bitten. 

It almost makes it worse. If there had been some glaring flaw in what he did in those final days, Jon could at least beat himself up for it. He knows, though. There is absolutely nothing he could have done. 

He knows the Hunter had been tracking them for the last four days. He doesn’t know where she came from, but does know that she must have been headed someplace further north and then caught their scent up by Pitlochry and followed them from there. He knows she was made to be indomitable, made to catch up fast, faster than any real human could. He knows he and Martin were fast too, normally. A benefit of not being entirely real humans themselves. And Jon knows— _Knows_ —that there was a compound of survivors half a day’s trek south where they could take shelter, at least for a little while. There, with the strength only numbers can lend anyone, they could take down the Hunter. 

He knows all of this now. He did not know when it mattered. 

* * *

There was the sound of broken glass stirring. He thought he had imagined it at first. 

Again, though. A high, quiet scrape, and then silence, long and deliberate. Closer this time. 

Jon felt his own pulse all throughout his body. He was certain that whatever lurked in the dark could feel it too, hot and rushing and horribly alive. Martin made a huffing noise in his sleep, and Jon laid as still as he could in his arms, praying to anyone, _anything_ that whatever was there would just leave them be. 

But they didn’t live in that kind of world. This was the world he remade, and it was not so kind.

There was an icy crunch of glass underfoot. Jon could see through the darkness and he took in, briefly, the figure standing in the doorway. A woman, average height and lean and terrifyingly normal but for her stance that betrayed her as a Hunter, sure-footed and strong.

It wasn’t Daisy. Jon didn’t know what he would have done if it was. 

This Hunter stood with fists hung clenched at her sides, and her eyes gleamed unnaturally in the dark, flat discs of light like in photos of animals taken with the flash on. It might have been something approaching funny, except those eyes were trained on right on the two of them. 

It’s funny, how very like prey we are in a moment like this. 

Jon went stiller than he ever had in his life. He could only see her out of the corner of his eye if he didn’t move his head, and she was moving so slowly; there was no way to avoid the debris on the ground so her only hope at stealth was this awful, inexorable approach. One of his hands was still clutching Martin’s. He squeezed it as tight as he could, heart in his throat. Dug his nails deep into the fleshy part of his thumb. Prayed Martin wouldn’t make a noise as he awoke.

Martin’s eyes shot open, inches from his face, and Jon stared into the terrified whites of them, begging silently _be quiet, be quiet, be quiet_.

“Hunter,” Jon mouthed. “Behind you.” 

Just for a moment, Martin froze and entirely stopped breathing, fingers still locked with his. It was like the worst of Jon’s childhood nightmares, trapped and forced into stillness, aware of a threat and so wholly unable to fight back. Every nerve in his body _screamed._ He’d taken off the blindfold before going to bed—for him, there is nothing worse than waking up to unrelenting darkness—but he almost wished he hadn’t, then, that he could have at least died quiet and unknowing. _There’s a chance,_ he told himself desperately. _Martin’s knife’ll be right behind him, always is. All he has to do is roll over when she gets close enough._ Martin scanned his face and flexed his hand against Jon’s once, _Yes,_ and Jon knew he understood too. They waited, second by choked second. She kept taking those small, creeping steps, closer and closer and—

_“I know you’re awake.”_

There was a moment of petrified silence, and Jon held his breath, air caught high in his throat. 

Then all hell broke loose.

Martin released Jon and flipped over in one swift motion, grabbing for the knife on the other side of the sleeping bag. He snatched it up and held it in front of him as he staggered to his feet, shifting his weight to block Jon from the Hunter’s view. 

“Alright, then,” she snarled, and she lunged. 

She was quick, motions fluid and well-practiced; it was obvious this woman had killed before, and Jon could smell the blood on her, see how it matted her hair and stained her teeth. He couldn’t tell if the gore was tangible or just knowledge, just a grim understanding of what she was. She killed because she could. Being repaid, having debts owed to her—that was just icing on the damn cake. 

Everything seemed to happen so slowly, as if the Eye was extending time to allow him to drink it all in. It could only have been a matter of seconds. Jon was still on the ground when it happened. 

The thing about Martin Blackwood is: he is a fighter. But not in the ways that let you win a fight. Not like this. 

He knocked away her first blow with the flat of his blade, and somehow Jon still remembers that fierce surge of pride he had felt in that moment more than anything else. She had a knife, too, polished and well-sharpened, and Martin was _quicker,_ throwing out an arm so her blade skittered off the side of his and sent a shock of impact through her arm. An inhuman growl shook her body and the walls of the already-destroyed room, and she charged a second time, tossing her knife aside to grab Martin’s wrist and _wrench._

Jon heard the messy crunch of bones and Martin’s agonized shout. Watched Martin tumble to the hardwood floor, the Hunt-claimed creature who had once been a woman twisting to land on top of him, driving knees into his stomach, the gasp of air leaving lungs. Watched claws extend from fingertips, a hand that wasn’t a hand raising high—watched— _watched—_

The world went white. 

There was a ringing in his ears, and it sounded like the perfect inverse of a melody. 

(There’s Martin, all of twenty-nine years old, waving a sheepish hand as Jon storms past the assistants’ area. His cheeks are tinged with pink, and his eyes crinkle at the corners like they still do years later, and his skin is marked only by freckles. He offers a greeting that Jon does not return and will not for years. Unfazed, Martin turns back to work he does not understand but will complete with relative competence anyway. 

Yes, he has always been a fighter.) 

A sensation of rushing wind past his ears. 

(Standing by Jon’s hospital bed, clenching hands into fists so he doesn’t touch skin that he knows will be cold. The fog is already beginning to roll in. He resists anyway. Manages the impossible for over another year. 

Always a fighter.) 

Something that could be a scream. Wet, under his fingers. He observed this dispassionately, seeing but not quite understanding. 

(Knocked over on the playground by a jeering eleven-year-old. Shoved into a locker. Shoulder-checked in the hallway. Hit, once, by a man who knew exactly what he wanted, and it wasn’t him. 

Just not like this.) 

Jon knew precisely where the Hunter’s jugular would be. The Beholding told him. 

When he comes back to himself, his skin is burning and his muscles are trembling and he is on the ground. The sleeping bag is dark and slick with blood. The Hunter lies ten feet away, limbs at awkward angles in her own pool of blood.

Martin is on his back beside him, breath shuddering in and out so faintly. 

“Martin,” he rasps, pushing himself up on his elbows. His chest still hurts, and he’s pretty certain his wounds have reopened, and he has never cared less about something in the world. His hands are dark and shining in what little light makes its way into the building, reflecting off the fragments of glass. He hopes it is his blood. _God,_ it has to be. 

(Already he knows it is not.)

It’s hardly more than a ragged whisper when Martin speaks. “Jon.” There’s blood all over his face, and it almost looks fake, like some scene in kitschy horror movie, but it’s _Martin_ and it’s _now_ and _here_ and more of the red liquid keeps pouring out from gashes across his face and clawed into his chest like she, _it,_ was digging for the heart, and it’s all soaking hot and slippery through his thick winter jacket. He scrounges for Knowledge, for _anything—_

“Don’t know what you did,” Martin breathes. “But thank you. For getting her.” 

“For all the good it did you,” Jon hisses out. “Stop _talking—“_

“No,” Martin insists, bullheaded, stubborn Martin, who never lets anything go. _“No,_ I’m going to say my piece,” but his voice is so weak, barely a scratch in his throat, and Jon is scrabbling to wrap another shirt around those deep slashes carved into his sternum, just where Jon puts his head every night, just where he’s woken up every morning in this dead world, and he knows the Beholding has no reason to keep Martin alive. 

“Let me help you, please, God, just let me,” and he wishes so much his voice wouldn’t break if only so he wouldn’t have to see Martin smile like that, cracked and full of regret, like he’s already gone. Like there’s nothing he can _do_. 

Martin starts to lift a hand to Jon’s face but only gets as far as his shoulder before he has to stop, face twisted in pain. “Keep going, after this.” 

“Stop,” Jon pleads, abandons the efforts with the shirt and grabs Martin by the collar of his jacket, but he just keeps talking. 

“You won’t want to keep going. But you have to.”

Jon makes a noise he doesn’t recognize from himself, low and animal and furious, and Martin shakes his head almost imperceptibly. 

“There is something after this, isn’t there?” 

“Just more life,” Jon says. Begs. 

It’s cruel, the fact that that’s the last thing he says to Martin Blackwood before his eyes go fixed and still. 

Before he lets go. 

Jon lightly closes Martin’s eyes before his own vision stops blurring, two bloodsoaked fingers shaking and so gentle on that fragile skin. It’s what seems most important in the moment, most right. There’s a scream building in his throat, vicious and raw and burning, and he—he swallows it. Tightens his hand into a fist in the jacket and tips his forehead to lean against Martin’s. It’s sticky. Stained red. Martin would tell him to move on. Tell him he doesn’t have time to lose, that the Hunter’s ambush was more than simple misfortune, that it would not be the only one on their scent. Tell him he had a world to save. Tell him he owed it to him to keep going. 

Jon does not leave that shattered room for a long time.

When he does, he has a plan. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Anything dead coming back to life hurts." - Toni Morrison, _Beloved_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for staying with me on this journey! warnings on this chapter for violence, a some horror (though not above the canon-typical levels), and sort of depersonalization/dissociation. thank you for reading

It’s dark out. Here, at least. The boundaries of what is _him_ and what is not are blurring, have been blurring since… well, since. 

Jon takes the body— _Martin,_ he has to keep calling it, _him,_ Martin, because he still is Martin and will be even more Martin if, _when,_ this works—with him. He buries the Hunter, more animal than human by this point, in the pathetic patch of dirt and yellowing grass outside the apartment complex. But Martin he takes. 

The Corruption sets in fast these days. It’s just a fact of living in this world. Rot claims its victims quickly and mercilessly, curling sickly-warm and yellowing through corpses and people who may as well be. Kneeling over Martin, whose flesh is long cold, he catalogues every detail of skin, every freckle and scar and birthmark and—and gaping wound. There’s no stench, no hint of supernatural decay. He looks the same as the day he died, bloodstained and faintly smiling as if he’s in on a joke Jon hasn’t quite gotten the shape of yet. He’d always explain those sorts of jokes, though, and now… 

Slowly, he rests the pads of his fingers on the knuckles of big, broad hands. No rot, not anywhere. Good. The Corruption has no claim to Martin. Nobody does. 

He’s shaking again. He notes it distantly, files it away without a thought. It doesn’t feel as important as it once might have. Jon doesn’t bother with the blindfold much anymore; he can be here and there and there and there and there without it sinking claws into his skull. He hardly even remembers the sensation anymore. 

He has a plan. He does. 

There’s a—a place. Far from here, but the distance doesn’t seem to matter. He feels _strong_ , strong in a way he hasn’t in years or maybe ever. Even when he was technically in the prime of his youth, he hadn’t felt like this, like every sense was sharp enough to draw blood if you touched it too carelessly, like his muscles were on fire, both fuel and flame, like his bones were unbreakable purely because they were _his_ , like he could soar above this scarred ground like a hawk and see all and know all. 

Jon shakes himself, hairs on the back of his neck prickling. _No,_ he thinks, or maybe says aloud, words cracking and brittle through the chilled night air. Winter is near. _No. I am not yours._ Carefully, carefully, he brushes the hair from Martin’s forehead, and he does not kiss him there, but the effort of not doing it, the desperate and hopeless love warring with revulsion, with fear, with a pain that reaches into his lungs and holds tight—he could choke on it. There is still blood underneath his fingernails, no matter how fiercely he scrubs at his hands. He wishes he could clean them properly; he can’t stand the grime and blood that covers him, but finding potable water will only increase in difficulty as time goes on. It’s just that it feels improper—no, more than improper—it feels innately _wrong_ to touch Martin like this, unclean and coated in the blood of his murderer. But there’s nothing to be done about it. 

(That first week after the end of the world had been the hardest. His skull pounded for days on end; his eyes felt, ironically, like knives were being driven into them at the slightest hint of light or movement. 

He hadn't talked much either. 

Martin understood, of course. Used the scissors from the first aid kit to cut a strip of fabric from an old shirt neither of them liked too much to fashion him a blindfold, reasoning that maybe the headache wouldn’t be so bad if he only had to see through one set of eyes. It helped, sort of. He was useless, walking through the wasteland that had once been Scotland, unable to do much besides cling to Martin’s warm, broad hand and trust he would take him somewhere safe. He tried to focus on that and Martin’s voice rather than the constant stream of visions. It was a week of horrors, of furious manifestations of nearly every Fear that they had to outrun or be killed by, of hunger and thirst and distant, piercing screams. For the first few days, at least. 

Then the world had gone mostly quiet, and that was worse.

Surviving was dull work, grinding and awful and dirty and _boring,_ except for those moments of terror that came just once or twice every couple days. Those sharp moments when everything is thrown into relief, and Jon is reminded he is human, and he has so much to lose. When his pulse is quick and deafening. When he steps forward to protect Martin, and Martin steps forward to protect him, one movement, and together they run or fight or hide, and together they live.) 

Jon levers his right hand into the crooks of Martin’s knees and angles his left just below his shoulders and straightens, and he almost laughs, harsh and broken, when he sees a faint reflection in the shard of glass. Bridal carry. _God._ Wasn't it just days ago that he was looking at Martin's ring finger and thinking maybe _—no, okay, not now. Not now._ As is, he just exhales sharply and looks away, blinking hard. Martin is heavy in his arms. Substantial. He doesn’t stagger under the weight, but his vision is blurring again, and he’s so tired of the tears, the wretched noises that choke their way out of his throat without his permission. So he steels himself, breathes in and out once and then again and again. This is how you keep going. 

He almost forgets to bring the packs with all their supplies, the meager food and water that hasn’t gone bad and extra weapons and clothes and medical supplies and that book of poetry. He hasn’t eaten in days, and the Eye is tugging at him, but his stomach is not. Where the hunger should be is… nothing. It’s not void. It’s not full either. It’s just as if that urge never existed in the first place. But Martin will need to eat, so Jon slings them awkwardly over his shoulders, one by one. He’s weighed down, thick fabric against his palms and heavy bags that hold what’s left of their lives on his back. He kicks glass shards to the side, and he begins to walk. 

(Jon stripped the bark off the stick clumsily, fingers unpracticed with the just-slightly-too-big knife. The fire was dimmer than it should have been that night, so they stayed awake, just in case. He’d Seen how the Dark had been spreading across this area, like a drop of ink through water, but it was too wide to go around, so he had picked a place where it was thinnest for them to rest awhile. Martin had given him a weary, grateful smile and squeezed his hand. 

“Thank you, Jon,” he’d murmured, and hadn’t that been something, the tenderness in his voice? Remembering it again in front of their makeshift fire, Martin pressed solidly to his side from thigh to shoulder, he almost smiled. They had fallen into place together there at the end of the world. How wrong is it, being happy even as you know everything is falling apart? 

Of course it all came back around in the end.) 

The streets are empty, but there’s no fog rolling in. He’s lucky for that much, he supposes. He doubts he could deal with the Lonely like this; the thought of it makes his stomach twist. Withstanding that dull chill, that numb hollow in his chest like everything that made him alive had been scooped out. 

It had been all but effortless before with Martin on the other side of it. Now Martin is in his arms. With him. He has never been more alone in his life. 

No sound carries through the place, not even the calls of carrion birds. Probably a good sign. If anything’s fleshy enough to attract vultures, well. But the sound of his footsteps doesn’t even echo through this dead town, as though even the air has lost its vitality. It just sits, oppressive and still and faintly chilly. Jon wonders if he’s in the Lonely after all. Wonders if he’d even know the difference. 

He thinks he understands why it was so easy for Martin to fall in during those six months. 

The day passes. He’s used to walking, anyway. He covers precisely 15.68 miles while the sun is up, which, he notes distantly, is farther than the average. He and Martin had managed maybe 10 on a good day, though he isn’t certain of the exact number. Jon doesn’t see much as he goes. Or, maybe, he sees altogether too much. It’s—bad. The Eye darts between countless people, jagged and flashing. He gets scraps. The deranged song of a calliope playing as an old man watches countless mannequins with skin pulled haphazard over their joints stagger toward him, knowing he is too slow to outrun them. A child clutching at the fur of their dog for any scrap of comfort, sobbing as the being that had once been Helen Richardson holds out distended hands and laughs, hallways and hallways and hallways stretching out behind her and inside her. Snarls of a wolf blurring into the voice of a woman, painting over a scream that cuts out into a pathetic gurgling. An eye sliding open in the clouds. The bright point of a pocketknife. Skin sloughing off to reveal white bone. Their fear rolls over him like waves, and he does not react, just shifts Martin in his arms. Their fear is constant and overwhelming. Their fear encompasses the entire earth.

(Where does it end? Where do they run out of real people, people who haven’t fallen to the Entities or merged with them? Where does this world turn into nothing but senseless, useless fear? What is the point of it all? _Who is winning here?)_

Their fear doesn’t matter to him anymore. Can’t matter. It’s—it hurts, doesn’t it, but there’s nothing he can do. Besides push on. 

(Martin would want him to save the world, to break the Eye’s stranglehold before it is too late, but how do you thwart what sees you coming, what knows exactly what you are capable of, what can split open your mind with sharp nails and peer inside with little more than a thought, what reached out and dragged all the Fears down through whatever thin barrier had kept them separate for innumerable millennia? It has been too late for years now. These machinations were set in place before the Beholding was so much as a shadow at the edges of their minds.) 

So he watches, and he does not act. The agony that splits his head with each heartbeat lessens, just a little. 

There’s easy passage ahead, he Sees. If he cuts further west from the most direct path, he can avoid a hotbed of Flesh and Slaughter. The detour will cost him a day, but he’ll still be down by Glasgow in less than half a week, and from there it’s—

 _345.73 miles as the crow flies to London,_ intones something that resonates deep inside his skull. _403.44 if you take the main road. Traffic is light._ He shakes his head to clear the thought away, and his neck doesn’t ache. He thinks it maybe should, strained as it has been for the last several hours. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t.

At the end of the day, the Archivist is not tired, but it would feel wrong not to stop for a while, so he begins looking for a suitable place to rest on autopilot. His muscles do not hurt. His arms have gone numb, but that’s nothing to be worried about. He hasn’t needed blood in that sense for a while now. The vessel degrades but does not break. What lives within will keep it moving. 

The Archivist turns suddenly from the road. He can feel something in the underbrush, extends his senses just a little, and—yes, a boy, no older than sixteen _(his fifteenth birthday is the third of August, and the boy does not believe he will know the day when it comes, much less live to see it)_ , just a few yards away. 

“Come out,” he calls. “I know you’re there.” 

The bushes are silent. 

The Archivist outstretches a hand. “I won’t hurt you. I just want an exchange of information.” A thought occurs to him, and he chuckles mirthlessly. “Well. Answer me this, if you’re in there: _yes or no?”_ He is still strong, can feel the energy writhing like a living thing under his skin, but if he is to locate another Avatar and confront them in their own lair, he must be well fed. 

“No,” someone says from the bracken, then, instantly, _“Shit._ What the fuck are you?” This is said with considerably more fear, pitching high and cracking. And—

(“What was it like when you started slipping, Daisy?” They were sitting across from each other on the floor of his office. A wary sort of peace. 

She grimaced. “Bad. I mean. Obviously. But it was like—more and more, I wasn’t Daisy. Everything went in and out until the distinction wasn’t there at all any longer. Blurred. Like the Hunt was more me than I was. Can't even pinpoint when I was less Daisy than...” Jon watched as her hand flexed against her knee. There were faint scars on her knuckles, like for years they’d been broken open again and again before they could heal. Freckles, too, though. Chipped nail polish from a better day, nearly a month ago then, when Melanie wasn’t quite so angry or listless and was able to sit still long enough to paint them. It could be good sometimes, those little fragments of time when they forgot where they were. What they were becoming. What Daisy had done to him.

Jon pushed the thought aside.

“Do you think it’ll be okay now?” he ventured, voice quiet.

A snort. “God, Jon, what the fuck even _is_ okay anymore for us?”) 

“I’m the Archivist,” he says. “And you have experienced something terrible.” He has; the Archivist can see it on him, the mark of the End lying precisely over his throat’s pulse point. “Tell me about it.” 

“I. Don’t. Want. To,” the kid snarls, that manic, terror-fueled anger raising his voice to something akin to a yell, and the Archivist watches his hands ball up into clumsy, unpracticed fists. 

The Archivist—

(Same office, different night. “How do you do it, Daisy? How do you keep yourself tethered?” He can see her tense, and he winces preemptively, but she doesn't snap at him outright.

“I’m… bad at it, Jon.” 

“Yes, but you haven’t slipped yet. You haven’t—” He feels sick remembering it, so he stops. 

Daisy lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “You find something else to think of. I've got the quiet. You can have something, too.”)

 _—Jon_ is holding a corpse in the middle of a concrete road, the sky a gash yawning open above his head. His arms are so, so tired, and his legs are shaking, and he is already keeling over towards the pavement. His head spins, but he drops to his knees as slowly as he can manage and lays Martin down before all he can feel is the rough ground beneath his cheek. 

“Stay away from me!” the kid screams. 

He tries to say something, to apologize, _please, that wasn’t really me,_ but his throat is so dry all that comes out is a grating rasp. Distantly, he wonders how he was speaking before. Quick footsteps fade out of earshot. The first real, whole person he’s seen in God knows how long. 

Jon’s not sure how long he lies there on the road. Eventually, he claws a water bottle from one of the rucksacks and takes a long drink. Still not too hungry. Maybe. His body feels foreign. He doesn’t know what is happening to it until some part stops functioning, one way or another. Doesn’t even register he’s exhausted until he falls unconscious. 

When he comes to, it’s sunrise, or what passes for sunrise these days. Between the dust in the air and the eyes that open and close and the webbing that sometimes glitters in the spaces between the clouds and the slashes of infinite darkness and whatever new horror is approaching on the horizon, it can be hard to tell. 

He’s trying not to think too hard about yesterday. He remembers it so vaguely it scares him more than this apocalyptic hellscape ever could. It’s all impressions. Walking. Carrying. A slip, somewhere, that happened just slowly enough that he couldn’t have hoped to notice it. Hazes of others’ terror. City, or maybe woods, or maybe moorland. Fury twisting the face of a boy. Nothing beyond that. 

He reaches up and curls his fingers into the lapels of Martin’s jacket. The body’s mouth is slightly open, and it’s such a cliche but Jon swears it looks just like he’s sleeping, breathing so deep and slow as to be imperceptible. He looks away. He _absolutely_ cannot cry again. He doesn’t know if he could live with himself if he did. 

So, instead, Jon stands, picks up Martin, and just keeps walking. 

Jon does manage to stay inside himself that day. Now that he’s thinking about it, he is painfully aware of the pressure behind his eyes as he walks, a constant weight urging him to _Look_ , and he stops to tie the makeshift blindfold on. It… doesn’t help. He tries to use the Eye to just see what’s ahead of him, some sort of compromise, but it tugs him away to a woman watching her husband succumb to a wave of ants, to a man cocooned in spider’s web, to a hand clawing weakly out of the dirt. It’s only when he throws the blindfold off with shaking hands and sees the twin wet spots in the fabric that he realizes he is weeping. He pushes on. It is far more difficult when he can’t retreat into himself and let the Archivist take over. There is no conversation, no comforting presence, nothing to take his mind off of what his life, _everybody’s_ life, has become. The time passes so slowly.

(“I don’t know what I’d use as an anchor, Daisy,” he said, and she laughed outright. 

“Yes, you do, Jon,” she told him.

When it became clear she had no intention of elaborating, he let out a frustrated breath and continued. “Even if I _did_ know, we can’t even be sure if they work like that, against your own Entity.” 

She gave him a long look. “No. We can’t be.” 

“...but?” 

“But there has to be a better way than starving. And I th— I want to think that’s it.”)

He keeps his human eyes wide open, and he stares at the road, and he thinks of Martin. And Daisy. And Basira. And Georgie. And the Admiral. And Melanie. Of Tim, and of Sasha. He holds them all in his head and he thinks _these visions are mine; you cannot take them from me._ Jon will keep them safe in human memory. His own archives, records flawed and colored by bias, shelves cluttered and poorly organized, all emotion and action and misremembered details.

The Eye does not take him that day. 

Without its power, he only makes it around seven miles on aching legs, though the estimate could be wrong. He doesn’t want to open himself up to knowing the distance with precision. There’s nothing to stay awake for, so he sleeps early that night once he’s made the fire and the sun’s gone down.

In the last year and a half before the end of the world, Jon couldn’t escape the dreams of those he’d taken direct statements from. Naomi Herne, Tessa Winters, Lionel Elliott. Jess Terrell. All the others. For the first few weeks of the apocalypse, they’d only intensified, the victims staring at him with accusatory eyes, and he would have fled if he was able to. Then, unobtrusively, he stopped finding himself in Tessa’s dream. He didn’t notice for two days, and then Dr. Elliott’s was gone too. One by one, the dreams dropped away until it was just him standing beneath the sickly yellow Eye for hours, watching it watch him, unblinking. It didn’t hit him until he mentioned it to Martin offhandedly—”Maybe the Eye’s hold is weakening on me with so much else going on, right?”—and watched as Martin’s face went tight and closed off. He realized, then. You can’t dream if… 

Sometimes, as he and Martin traveled, somebody would let him take a statement directly. The nights after were almost comforting, watching rather than being watched. 

It never lasted long. 

His dreams are empty tonight other than that Eye. He turns away from it, closes his own eyes, and still there is the Eye in the dark behind his eyelids, and still it watches him, and still it knows. It Knows. It’s hard to say how much of it is his own fear and how much is real. How much Jonah is actually watching him. Jon would like to think that he attends to other things, now that the world belongs to him. But then again, Jon would like to think a lot of things. 

(“You can’t keep starving yourself like this, Daisy. It’ll kill you.” He felt like a caged animal, pacing back and forth in this cage of an office. 

She looked back at him with flat, calm eyes. “Then it kills me. And it kills you too if you try it. We can’t justify our survival like this. Not really.”) 

He’s just so _hungry_. 

The hunger is worse the next day. It brings him back to himself, to _Jon,_ but it strengthens the Eye’s pull on him, and it’s as useless to resist as the tide. Everything presses in on him in this world of fear, and he can feel the trauma eddying around him in currents, knows intuitively where it is strongest; it would be so easy to follow—

Breathe in, shuddering and deep. Think not of hunger, of fear. Think of—of— 

_i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere you go i go, my dear;_

The harder he pulls away the harder he is pulled back in. _Edward Estlin Cummings was an American poet born 14th October 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts,_ some voice hisses nastily in the back of his mind. 

_and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)_

_i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)_

If Jon stops here, in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the end that comes after an apocalypse, perhaps he will be able to regain himself. But he knows the longer he goes without Martin, _real_ Martin, not the corpse he is calling Martin, the further he drifts away, so he has to keep going, and _You need me, Archivist,_ the Beholding tells him, _how do you think you survived this long? Luck? Your own wits? Love? Look now, a manifestation of the Hive lurks a quarter-mile to the southeast, and you could avoid it by cutting three degrees west without losing too much time, but the Spiral has a foothold there and the paths will not make sense. You will be lost in minutes, even with guidance. And yet going further east will work. You would not have chosen that on your own._ It is true. _You need me._ Repeated with such relish. The Eye is manipulative and the Eye is cruel, but this is because the Eye speaks only truths. 

So he turns his feet eastward, and he keeps thinking of the twentieth-century poetry he never thought to tell Martin he had enjoyed. 

It’s becoming harder and harder to know when he is and is not in the Lonely. 

For a few days, he travels without seeing another living soul. The sun is hot even through winter’s oncoming cold. 

One day, the sky opens up, and it rains for hours on end, something that might feel cleansing if he could be aware of things like that anymore. If nothing else, it washes away the blood on Martin’s motionless face. Jon’s not sure what’s keeping him from—from decomposing. Even beyond the Corruption, he shouldn’t still look the same as the day he died, just as peaceful, just as destroyed. If Jon put his fingers to Martin’s throat, he could trick himself into believing he felt a pulse. Water runs down the corpse in rivulets and soaks through that bloodstained jacket, turning the raindrops red, and nonsensically, Jon thinks _I should hold him closer, he’ll be cold._ The rain doesn’t dissipate the mist creeping in at the edges of his vision, though. 

He blinks. The mist still doesn’t go away. 

The Beholding speaks to him, tone as devoid of emotion as ever. _Yes, Archivist, it’s the Lonely._ Or, no, it doesn’t speak. It never does. Instead, it makes things known to him in the same voice as his thoughts, but somehow… other. 

The otherness is becoming more difficult to parse by the day. 

_Don’t worry, Archivist. The Eye keeps its own safe enough._

“I—don’t— _want_ —your—protection,” Jon snarls out. The chill of the fog is sinking down into his bones, and he thinks of Martin. And Georgie. And the Admiral. And of Melanie. Of Tim, and of Sasha. Of even Basira and Daisy. _These visions are mine; you cannot replace them with yours._

_Perhaps you don’t want it. But you need it. You know you are adrift._

The trees are fading away around him, and he can hear distant crashing of waves, though he is miles inland. He is adrift. He has no anchor but the one weighing down in his arms. He has nothing to move towards, nothing with which to center himself. 

(Whenever they had to brave The Lonely before, Jon and Martin held hands like the first time, and they spoke to each other as much as possible, about whatever they could think of. 

“Oh, hey, what _do_ you have against Keats anyway?” 

“What are you—? Oh, Christ, you _listened_ to that? I was awful back then!” Jon protested, chuckling guiltily. 

Martin laughed, nudged him with a shoulder. “You were, yeah, I won’t lie to you about that. I mean, it certainly didn’t stop me liking you. ‘S alright now. But—yeah, I listened to all your tapes.” 

He flushed at the thought of it, though it wasn’t as if _he_ didn’t listen to the statements everyone _else_ recorded. “I don’t know why I don’t like Keats. Too flowery, maybe? I think I tried reading him when I was about thirteen and couldn’t get through a poem.” Jon caught himself. “I mean, um. Obviously now I have a certain appreciation for that style, uh—” 

“You _really_ don’t have to pretend to like what I write for my sake, Jon,” Martin told him, amusement tugging his lips in a poorly suppressed half-smile Jon could never help but find endearing. 

“It’s not pretending!” he insisted, and it was true—yes, some of the metaphors were overwrought, and the language tended to be rather clunky. But if Jon was only capable of enjoying writing that didn’t occasionally beat a symbol into your head and always had perfectly-constructed sentences, then what was the _point?_

Martin grinned and shook his head, and Jon could swear that he saw him blush through the layer of grime. He squeezed his hand, and Martin squeezed back.) 

There’s no hand for him to hold now. 

_Let me protect you. There is no other way through. No turning back._

He wishes, sometimes, that the Beholding could lie. The thought is gone as soon as it enters the Archivist’s mind, mist evaporating in the morning sun. 

He still sees the twisting strands of fog, but now he can see _past_ them. They remain where they are, just on a different level—next to this world, he remembers, not quite in it. Interesting that he can separate the two layers out; the point of the final ritual was to draw it all together. The observation, however, is made as if from very far away. It is not his role to make connections, after all. It is his role to watch. 

The Archivist is holding a corpse. The fact does not surprise him, somehow. It is, he sees, Martin Blackwood. 6’4”, broad, dark-haired. Born on the 19th February 1987 at 2:46 in the morning. Died on the 29th November 2018 at 3:29 in the morning. Killed by an agent of the Hunt, a creature once known as Eve Morgan. Former archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, but those times were long past, and the Eye’s claim to him was weak at best, so it mattered little. Former assistant to the Lonely’s former Avatar, Peter Lukas, whose mark was even weaker. Abandoned by his father, Charles Blackwood. Despised by his mother, Celina Kaniecki, formerly Celina Blackwood. Loved by Jonathan Sims. 

Jonathan Sims? 

He does not lay down the body, though he doesn’t understand why; it will only slow his progress. Something—tugs at him when he thinks about it. A pull just behind his ribcage. He scans the area, catalogues in a heartbeat the species of the trees that surround him, rowan and Scots’ pine. The city of Stirling is nearby (original population: 36,447; current population: 139. No, wait. 138, now), so he ought to be back in England within the week, if that. The Archivist begins to walk again at the promise of a destination. The Eye is strongest in London, after all. 

Except the Archivist is not traveling to London. The Archivist is traveling to... Oxford? 

The Lonely fades away around him in minute degrees, so slowly he might not have noticed, but he notices everything. He has walked 13.540 miles since Jonathan Sims realized he was even in it, too dazed to see the mist crawling in around him until it was far too late. It had been drawn to him, just as it is drawn to anybody traveling without companionship. The Lonely, of course, has plenty of isolation to home in on in times like these. Most who have survived this long try to find groups to walk with—they know what the fog does to those who wander alone—but Sims, it seems, was not so wise. The Archivist draws his mind out, Looking. There is a man named Richard Cardinal in the mists 5.672 miles behind him who will soon be swallowed up. He was coming from Aberdeen in the hopes of meeting up with his cousin, Ben Aldon, in Falkirk where they grew up. Richard has made it quite far, all things considered, but the Archivist can see how his mind is going blank, how his outline is fading at the edges until he is a silhouette and then nothing at all. The man’s fear lingers, a dull, numb thing that dissolves into the fog, and the Archivist can feel the power of witnessing the fear settle beneath his skin in a low hum, invigorating. It’s almost impressive how quickly the Lonely has regained its power since the recent failed ritual and destruction of its Avatar a few years afterward. Peter Mordecai Lukas, age sixty-eight, 5’10”, stocky and gray-bearded— 

_(“Tell me, or I will_ rip _it out of you,”_ he'd growled, and Lukas stood firm, chin jutted out. Jon could have let him go. He needed to know, yes, to understand the schemes held just out of his reach, but he had gotten what he came for already. Martin would not be so difficult to find and free, now that he understood the shape of things. There was no need for Jon to tear Lukas apart. 

But he _wanted_ to. That wasn’t the Eye, which needed his information withheld a little while longer. No, that was not the Eye. That was Jon. _With_ the Eye.) 

The Archivist strides through Stirling, and he is not disturbed. 

(Sheltering in one of the few houses that wasn’t burned down in the first days after the world went wrong, eight-year-old Marion Woods peers out from behind the front window’s torn and repatched curtain. There is a man on the streets, the first stranger she’s seen in days. At first she’s worried it’s another monster, but he seems to be hunched over a large bundle in his arms even as he walks with steadfast purpose, and monsters don’t do that. They walk upright, and their teeth are sharp and their bodies are wrong. He’s just ragged and _short_ , with unwashed shoulder-length hair that falls in strands over his face, and he’s skinny as a rail but in a starved way, not a scary way. His clothes are dirty, stained dark with mud and what she has come to recognize as blood. It’s a common sight, which makes her parents sad for her, but it’s alright really. There was always blood even before the day it all broke. She’s about to call out to him from the relative safety of the house, ask him who he is and try to see if he’s the sort her family can take in, when he turns his head ever-so-slightly and Marion gets her first good look at his face. It’s scarred, which isn’t so bad—pocked and scraped under a shaggy beard—but it’s the eyes that get her. Pure black, like the pupils have expanded past the irises, like the flat dead eyes of a barn owl, and his head isn’t even pointed her direction but she feels like he _sees_ her in a way nothing else ever has. Like he’s picking his way through her thoughts and fears and hopes and guilts, like he knows what she’s done. She does not yank the curtain closed because she knows that would be stupid. She stays very, very still, and she looks back. Eventually the man trudges out of sight, though she would swear she still feels his eyes. _Well, not a man,_ Marion thinks. _A monster after all._ She doesn’t tell her mum. She doesn’t want her to fret.) 

Jon is staggering on a dirt road ten miles outside Stirling as he comes back to himself. His shoes, the battered old brogues he’d had since university, are wearing through at the soles. He feels—dirty. Filth is a feeling he can’t abide after his time in the Buried, but it’s been his reality since the final ritual, and it’s never been worse than now, clutching Martin to his chest, breaths heaving in and out of him like he’s been running for miles. His pulse rabbits in his throat, and he tries desperately not to think about why that might be, even as power arcs through his nerves burning and acidic, as his body tries to hold what was never meant to be contained. He’s not sure where he is, exactly, but he doesn’t, _can’t_ figure out his location. He turns to see Stirling barely visible on the horizon and lets out a long breath. Jon’s not—he isn’t sure how long he wasn’t himself. He isn’t sure he wants to know. Martin is still in his arms, thank God. His skin is damp from the mist, so it can’t have been that long.

He’s just so _tired_ in the way sleep has never been able to help. It’s a suffocating, constricting weight that burrows under his skin and crushes his chest, and he longs for somebody, for _anybody._ The familiar pacing of Daisy outside his office or Basira’s centered presence or Melanie’s cutting snark. Tim’s hand wrapped around his wrist, tugging him to dance while they’re both dead drunk at some awful bar in Chelsea. Sasha handing him files across a desk. Martin, back when he was bumbling and shy, or Martin, when he was nervous around him but still stubbornly kind, or Martin, slowly becoming his friend, or Martin, distant and cold but always in his periphery, or Martin, holding his hand on the train ride up to Scotland, or Martin, self-assured and knife-wielding and still grinning at him warmly. _Martin,_ in any way that isn’t dead in his arms. He misses them, all of them, dead and alive. All of those people he didn’t realize he loved, deeply and furiously and protectively, until it was far too late. 

_You can still help them,_ Jon thinks. Or—the Eye thinks? _He_ thinks. His breath is a hitched, wretched thing. He realizes he has no way of being sure when the last time he breathed was. His body feels weak, and it’s not even his anymore, is it? It belongs to something else, something that has a grip on him too tight to ever dream of breaking. It’s almost better when the Beholding takes over, when he chooses it, if it really is his choice. If he isn’t fabricating the fight to begin with. If he hasn’t already decided to become a creature rather than a person, and this battle in his mind isn’t some narrative he’s telling himself to justify it. Movements jerky, he stumbles again, hands slipping over wet skin and cloth. 

There’s a meadow by the roadside that is still, miraculously, full of long grass and wildflower-weeds nobody ever bothered to get rid of. Martin’s favorite kind of flower—dandelion and daisy and thistle and buttercup, growing so defiantly where they were never wanted, and so beautiful for it. He goes to his knees there, reaches back to pull the sleeping bag from its place on top of his pack so he has somewhere to collapse that isn’t the mud, and it’s—it just isn’t there. He’s still carrying both rucksacks, his and Martin’s, but without the sleeping bag. He must have left it behind somewhere along the line. Or it fell off and he just didn’t register it. 

Ridiculously, this is what makes Jon want to cry. This petty mistake. His throat feels tight, and he can feel the heat behind his eyes, and he tries to breathe in evenly to smooth away the mounting panic, but his breath comes shuddering and sharp. _No,_ he tells himself, _hold onto this, it’s better than—you’re_ living _this, okay, this is you, this is_ you _with Martin’s corpse, this is you in this damp field outside Stirling, this is you walking in worn shoes to the house on Hill Top Road. This is you, Jonathan Sims, and you are carrying this man because you love him. This is you. It’s you. It has to be you, human and hungry and crying because you miss it all so much._ The sobs heave out of him then and he shakes with their intensity, each inhale scraping through his lungs like gravel. He can feel his arms and legs trembling, and somehow he’s lying on his back, staring up at a blurred sky, clouds scudding over the moon and the stars distended and stretching and all in the wrong places. There is blood on his lips and salt in his mouth and he can’t tell the difference between any of it. And eventually he’s out of tears and he’s just shaking, dirty and terrified and empty, and still his breaths come in those awful, retching gasps. His mind, rushing before, is quiet and still. There’s no moon tonight. Slowly, slowly, his vision clears, and he gazes up. The constellations blend together, swirling as if flowing into a drain. The sky is dark and wide, and he sinks into it gratefully. Everybody is as they are. The universe is as it is. _Okay,_ he thinks. _Okay._

(That night he is sleeping for once—and there is the ground cracking open like a thin layer of ice——the yelp of a nearby fox—a mournful, low thrumming from the sky— _wake up, Archivist, run—_ it’s no longer night; it is more than night; it is Night, Dark and all-encompassing—Jon knows, with a sudden, certain peace, that to survive, for _Martin_ to survive, he must choose this and choose it willingly— _Archivist, open your eyes. There is nothing else left. You know your path. Open your eyes—_

eyes open up blacker than the Dark, drawing in all that is light, all that is to be seen—a rush of energy, pulsing through lightning-bolt veins—a human body becoming _more—_

_(Protect them—_

(Daisy says, “Sometimes I think there are no good decisions,” and Jon hasn’t responded yet, isn’t sure if he believes her, and the Archivist opens his eyes and Alice “Daisy” Tonner belongs to the Hunt, can _never_ return from the Hunt, (hair blonde and self-cut into uneven, feathery wisps that frame her face like a homemade halo, and Jon loves her, and ((the Archivist looks at her and sees clearly the blood on her hands. 

The Archivist picks up the body of Martin Blackwood (don’t you love him? The dried thistle he pressed into the anthology of twentieth-century poems? The wide, calloused hands?), more out of muscle memory than anything else— _biceps brachii, brachialis, coracobrachialis, triceps bracci, anconeus, flexor carpi ulnaris, p_ —

)) (

A young woman is leaping over an overturned stop sign as she flees an amalgamation of people she had once known, and then, without warning, she is scooped up into the sky. A person in their early forties is calmly winding spider silk around an older man’s throat until the man is breathing no more. A boy is picking up his father’s gun for the first time as the Flesh draws nearer and realizing he knows how to use it perfectly. A teenage girl is, with robotic certainty, beginning to dig her own grave. 

_Do not go gentle into that good night—_

The Archivist is crossing the border between England and Scotland, and Basira asks Jon, “What happens if you open the door?” ) 

Somewhere, it starts to snow. It is cold and miraculous. Isn’t it something, knowing that the Earth will continue spinning? Even when it seems the world has been knocked irrevocably off its axis, winter still comes and touches its fingers to the hard ground. Murmurs that if winter can come, maybe spring can too. 

Is it snowing in England? )) 

The Hunt never ends, and the Archivist watches as its agents push on nevertheless, always seeking more and more and more. He scans their faces intently and wishes he knew _why_. But it is not his job to know why. Only to know what. The Desolation claims this senselessly destroyed world, inch by vicious inch. The Spiral twists—the Stranger sows distrust—

Tim thanks him for letting him at least have this, and says he has not forgiven him. 

The Lonely isolates—the Flesh mutilates 

(his ribs, one in the Boneturner and one hidden away, he hopes it’s safe) (safe?) 

The Slaughter tears—the Corruption rots—(the End looms—

An old woman in Lancashire realizes she does not have anything to fear from death, and she stands in the middle of the street and laughs and laughs and laughs, and what is left of her wife watches and weeps and weeps and—)

—the Vast yawns ever wider—the Buried crushes ever closer—the Web weaves away in skittering silence—the Dark obscures the little that is worth seeing, and

_(—rage, rage against the dying of the light.)_

The Eye watches it all. 

There, in the center, is the Archivist. Its pupil. Its Archive. The Archivist is not a person. Was never a person. Only a library of fear. 

And it is contained in a devolving vessel that refuses to release its hold on a long-gone corpse.)) The Archivist walks without rest, eyes black and wide and unblinking. 

“What happens when you open the door?” Basira asks. 

“I drown,” Jon says. 

He drowns. 

* * *

_and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant_

_and whatever a sun will always sing is you—_ _  
  
_

“Jonathan.”

There is something wrapped around his wrists. Thin and light but strong. 

“Focus.” 

And just like that, the world resolves itself around him. The room is pale, glowing faintly from moonbeams coming in through the window. Thread-like strands glint in the light, giving definition to furniture and walls and doors. He knows… _recognizes_ it immediately. The upstairs room of 105 Hill Top Road. 

Jon coughs to clear his throat, but it scratches at his lungs and he ends up doubled over himself, blood flecking the ground beneath where he’s collapsed against the wall. “I th—” He gasps for air. “I thought you told me… not to come back here.” It would almost be witty if his eyes weren’t watering from pain.

“Well. It’s hardly my fault if you’re awfully prone to being kidnapped.” There’s a clicking noise at that from all around the room, and he gets the horrible feeling that it is the sound of countless tiny mandibles trying to laugh. “And you were coming here already, weren’t you?” 

“Y...Yes.” He licks his lips; the skin is cracked and bloody. “I suppose I was.” He feels strangely tranquil, gazing out the window into the night sky. The awareness of being bound is there, but any urgency associated with it is not. There are spiders all around him, and he should be terrified. There is even a spider in front of him, but this one is pretending to be a woman. 

“I thought it couldn’t hurt to let you back just the once. Though, granted, you did fight far more than I felt was strictly necessary.” 

He nods slowly. Then—

 _“Martin._ Is—where did—” Jon twists against the web wrapped tightly around his forearms and legs, and for the first time in a long time, panic flares white-hot in his chest. _“Where is he?”_

Annabelle chuckles, a dried husk of what the sound should be. “Do not try to compel me, Archivist. The Eye has _nothing_ here. I made damn sure of that. Say what you will of Jonah Magnus, but he keeps his promises.” 

Jon just glares at her until she gives a theatrical sigh and gestures at the ceiling. A figure lowers down painfully slowly, loosely entangled in webbing, and dangles three feet in front of him. It turns slightly in the breeze, the body motionless. He can see his face through the strands of web, peaceful and revealing nothing, eyes closed. 

“Stop looking at him like that.” Though she’s supposedly scolding, her voice betrays nothing but vague, supercilious amusement. “He’s fine. Well, as fine as he was before.” 

“What do you want?” he says softly. “I—I don’t understand.” 

The woman snorts and flicks her fingers at the web that binds him so it loosens and falls away. “Whatever you were coming here to give me, Jon.” The fear sets back in again. He remembers—he is desperately, desperately afraid of spiders. “Ah. You remembered! Wonderful. Isn’t it nice, feeling fear again? _Real_ fear, knowing that something could hurt you? I don’t think you did for a while there. Loss of control. Except—you forfeited that control willingly, didn’t you? To save them.” She jerks her chin at Martin’s corpse. “To save _him._ Well, here you are, Jon.” 

Jon is free of the web but he does not move, just watches Martin’s body sway gently in the frosty breeze coming in through the window. “I want him back,” he whispers, then looks up at her. “Name your price, Annabelle.” 

She hums, satisfied, and all at once the threads holding up Martin break away and he tumbles to the cobwebbed ground, landing with a dull thud. “That’s nice,” she murmurs. “It’s not every day you get an Avatar so directly under your thrall.” 

“It isn’t a thrall,” Jon snaps. “I’m well aware of your… influence.” 

Annabelle grins, and her mouth doesn’t look right. “Yes, you are. You’ve learned that well enough. But that doesn’t mean you’re not under my control. Being aware of the strings that make you dance doesn’t allow you to _stop dancing.”_

“What do you want?” he repeats flatly. 

The spider-woman sighs and steps over Martin’s prone body, the edge of a combat boot brushing carelessly over his chest, and Jon bites down on his tongue until he tastes blood. “Jon, as you are right now, you are nearly at the apex of your powers. Once you leave this house without Martin, you _will_ reach the height. Not just the Archivist, but the Archives themselves. Jonah doesn’t believe this is a threat to him, but he underestimates the power of the Eye, and he underestimates the power of agent blessed by the Beholding whose interests do not align with his. When you leave this house, my... _influence,_ as you put it, will no longer protect you from the Eye’s power filling you entirely. You will not need protection. Your mind will not fall to Jonah’s. You will be the Archivist, the Archives, _whatever_ you want to call it, truly and completely. You can kill Jonah. I’m sure it won’t even be that hard. Perhaps you’ll be cognizant enough to reverse the ritual. Perhaps you’ll even know how. Finally put together those pieces you’ve been gathering for years.” 

_“What do you want?”_

Annabelle arches an eyebrow and tilts her head. “Now you’re getting the shape of it, Jon. There are two options. One: you do precisely what I just said. You leave here without Martin, you become the Archives, you kill Jonah and take his place in the heart of the Beholding, and you make this world anew. All of the Fears are here, but you know as well as I that this is the Beholding’s world. You would change that, I believe. Two: you leave here with Martin, and you give me the Beholding.” 

She stares him down, and after a long moment of silence, Jon barks out a laugh. “What, just like _that?”_

“Yes. Just like that.” 

He sputters. “But I don’t—what—how do I know you’re not _lying_ to me? How do I know I’d still be myself enough to want to fix everything after I become the Archivist if I pick the first one? How do I know if you’d—how would you even bring him back, and—and _would_ you even? How would you just _take the Eye out of me?”_ He draws in a sharp breath and forces himself to let it out calmly. “How. Do I know. You’re not lying?” 

“You don’t!” she says brightly. “I’m not, though.” She does not expand upon this. He’s really not sure why he expected her to. 

“Okay,” he says, slumping down to fully sit on the floor. “Okay.” 

The woman watches him with some degree of sympathy, or something that is supposed to be sympathy. “Yes. Difficult, isn’t it? You only made it this far because of the Beholding,” and with a start Jon realizes how distant the Eye feels right now, a mere pang in the back of his skull that is still saying she’s right. “How far do you genuinely think you’ll make it without that guiding force? Your friends—what remains of them, anyway—have taken shelter just outside London. They’re safe, for the time being. Do you think you’ll reach them before you’re taken by some fickle turn of fate? Wouldn’t _that_ be something, you giving up so much only for Martin Blackwood to die again.” She has not moved closer, but she looms over him, and her teeth are sharp, and four pairs of eyes bore into his. 

Jon shakes his head, stares past her to the body that used to be Martin’s. “So it’s his life for my power.” The spider-woman- _thing_ nods, smiling beatifically. “You’re offering me a choice.” 

She laughs at that, high and echoing. 

“No. I’m not.” 

Of course not. It was never a choice, not with her. Not when it was Martin. 

“Free will,” he says, more hollow than even he had expected. 

Annabelle grins. “Precisely that.” 

“How long have you been planning this for?” 

She shrugs, stepping aside, and still he doesn’t race to the body though his hands clench into fists with the effort is holding still (don’t spiders like it when the flies thrash?). “The Mother plays the long game, Jon. But who’s to say? Perhaps I just capitalized upon the perfect opportunity.” 

And a choice is not a choice when you’ve shaped a person from childhood to be unable to choose otherwise. 

He does consider it, though, if only to force her to wait. The rush of knowledge, the power and joy it brings him—those are not false. Those are intrinsic to who Jon is; no fear god could have put them there. That was him. He likes asking questions, likes knowing, likes seeking more than the world has seen fit to give him. And he likes—he likes feeling useful. It was good being able to guide Martin through the post-apocalyptic landscape, seeing where was safe and where was not. It kept them alive for so long, probably longer than they had a right to. Certainly longer than he did. 

“One more question.” 

“Fine.” 

Jon shifts a little, eyes drawn to Martin’s face and then back to hers. “Why do you want the Beholding?” 

The smile she levels at him then is almost one of pity. “Oh, Jon. Didn’t you ever wonder why the Web never attempted a ritual before?”

A chill slides down his spine. “You were—were you waiting until the world belonged to just one thing? I, I suppose that one person is easier to control than—” 

She shrugs and brushes imaginary dust off her hands. “Well. Have you made your choice yet? Either way, I for one think that Jonah Magnus has spent far too much time believing he is in control.”

Jon scoffs. “You know my choice, Annabelle.” 

“Yes.” Her other six eyes blink at him in in languid, alternating patterns, and they are sparkling with triumphant humor. “But I need you to say it aloud. There is a way things are done.” 

He hesitates, just for a moment, his breath caught in his throat. He thinks about the Eye, about nightmares and statements and knowledge and the power to protect. He thinks about his friends. He thinks about a home and a future that likely will not exist. =

He anchors himself. 

_here is the deepest secret nobody knows_

_(here is the root of the root and bud of the bud_

_and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows_

_higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)—_

“Sacrifices must be made,” Annabelle tells him, “to live through times like these.” 

_and this is the wonder keeping the stars apart—_

“I choose him,” Jon says. “I choose Martin.” 

_i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)_

The pain reaches out for him, finds him, and _grasps_. 

Later, he will be able to separate it into discrete moments and sensations. The agonizing, slow dig at his eyes, the thrumming pain in the back of his skull starting almost unnoticeable and building to a fever pitch, the elated, hysterical laughter of Annabelle Cane so loud it hurts his ears. A deeper pain, too, that begins in his chest and radiates through his body, the sense of something _leaving,_ something that had been with him so long ripped out and away. There’s an afterimage burned into his mind: the face of a spider with five pairs of eyes. Threads sunk deeper into him than he’d ever imagined start to pull, dismantling him and putting him back together, and all sounds fade into a high scream that turns into a deafening, constant ringing in his ears. 

Later, he will be intimately aware of all of these things. 

For now, all he knows is that it _hurts_.

* * *

Someone is shaking him. 

“Jon— _Jon!”_

“Ow,” he manages faintly. “Can you be careful with the, the everything—?”

A shuddering, wet laugh. “You’re alive—I— _Jon!”_

“Martin,” he breathes, and he opens his eyes. The first thing Jon notices is that he can still _see_ . Instinctively, he tries to cast his mind outward, to See as well as see, and it’s not even like hitting a wall, it’s like the option to even go _up_ to the wall wasn’t there in the first place. He had thought giving up the Eye would mean giving up his human sight as well, that symbolic casting-off, had accepted that, but Annabelle must have found just the right strings to pull, as she always does—

The second thing he notices is Martin, hovering over him, broad face crinkled into a smile, and he’s weeping openly. His hands, Jon sees, are balled up in the lapels of Jon’s jacket. His hands are moving and his face is moving and he’s here, it’s _Martin_ , it’s Martin alive, and Jon is holding back tears of his own. 

“You _idiot,”_ Martin scolds, but any anger is tempered by the quiet, shaking sobs. “Cutting a deal with the fucking _Web—”_

“Had to,” Jon protests, pushing himself up on shaking arms so he can fall forward against Martin, tuck his head into the juncture of Martin’s neck and shoulder. “Couldn’t have just left you.” Martin smells like death and rainwater and cobwebs, but he’s _warm_ , and Jon can feel the pulse beating in his throat. 

A hand moves up and down Jon’s back, smoothing over knobbly, too-prominent vertebrae and ribs. “You could have,” Martin whispers. “You probably should have.” 

“No.” He is certain of that much. “I would have lost myself. I—I _did_ lose myself, after everything, Martin, you don’t—I—” 

“But you came back.” 

“Yes,” Jon agrees. Everything—all the human things he missed as the Archivist—bowls into him then and the empty, webbed room spins around him in dizzying loops, and there’s a yawning ache in his stomach, and his throat is so parched it hurts to breathe, and he’s physically, emotionally, and mentally _exhausted_. “Could you maybe—water—” he gasps out, and Martin swears under his breath and fumbles blindly for a water bottle. 

“Honestly, Jon, did you not drink or feed yourself or—” He rummages around in the rucksack for a couple moments. “Hm. You… pretty much didn’t.” 

Jon grabs the water bottle Martin offers and takes a long swig. It hurts, choking it down through a throat that wasn’t a throat for a long time, but draining the bottle is at least a small improvement. 

“I—” he slumps forward. “It’s not. Um.” He doesn’t have the strength to cry anymore, so he just succumbs to a numb, shuddering tiredness, curled in Martin’s arms. He’s weaker than he’s felt in maybe his entire life, and his life feels so long now. He can’t remember the last few days, doesn’t know what he’s done to the remains of the world and its people. 

“It’s okay,” Martin murmurs into his ear, over and over. “It’s okay. It’s okay, love. You did so well. It's okay.” 

They stay like that for a long time, huddled on the floor at 105 Hill Top Road. 

Come morning, Martin is holding him when he wakes up. They will have to find another sleeping bag, but for now Jon is just happy for his warmth against his face. Together, they eat old boxed cereal bars from the bottom of Jon’s rucksack, and they watch the grey dawn light make faint shadows on the floor, and it feels sacrosanct, untouchable, when Martin brushes light kisses over his cheekbones, his forehead, his lips, his throat, and murmurs _I love you_ into his skin like a prayer, like they’re human. 

Which, he supposes, they are. The thought makes him pull Martin closer.

Martin wants him to recover another day, but the idea of staying still in the Web’s stronghold for even an hour longer than they must rubs Jon the wrong way. Cobwebs cling to Martin’s hair in here, and Jon hates how hard it is to dislodge them. The wounds on Martin’s chest have healed over, but they have a faint silvery sheen to them now, and the scar is too close to a spiderweb for his liking. He suspects they are both marked by the Mother of Puppets now, even more than they were before. 

Once they leave the house, something unclenches in Jon’s chest, and finally he can breathe again, really breathe. He _needs_ to breathe, just like he needs the blood in his veins and the food in his stomach and the blink of his two unglowing eyes. The thought makes him huff out a half-delirious laugh that makes Martin looks at him in a way that is both questioning and understanding, and all Jon can do is smile, wobbly and a little sad but so real and immediate and necessary it almost hurts his chest. Martin smiles back after a moment, small and fleeting and warm. Jon could weep, but he won't. Everything is beginning again. They will have time to mourn and celebrate and argue and reflect and proclaim love later, and isn't that something? 

“I think Basira and Georgie and Melanie set up camp outside London,” he mentions quietly. “They have a little compound with other survivors.” 

Martin considers this and nods. “To London, then?” They cannot overpower Jonah Magnus anymore, can’t even dream of it. They are only human, after all, or closer to it than they have been in years. Jon has never been so happy to be _only_ anything. 

“To London,” Jon says, and he smiles again, unrestrained. It is still an unfamiliar thing on his lips after all this time, and he realizes how dearly he missed it.

They will make it there, in the end. There will be more near misses, without Jon’s knowledge of what lies ahead. More injuries, more pain, more fear. There will be fights over Martin’s stubbornness, over Jon’s reckless tendencies, over who gets to eat first, over what the future will bring, over whether it was worth it at all. There will be the oppressively familiar sensation of being watched. They will arrive on Georgie’s doorstep—bleeding and bruised, the Desolation at their heels, barely able to stand, but they will arrive. There will be tearful greetings and more fights. After, there will be nights of old fears and mornings of new hopes. There will be moments spent in the sun, moments without dread, moments of laughter and camaraderie and love. There will be more suffering, because that is the world they live in. But there will be more life. 

For the moment, though, they are only walking away from Hill Top Road. The pale dawn finally gives way to the day, and Jon takes Martin’s hand and holds on tight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading; i have several feelings about jon and this is how i get them out, i suppose. i used e. e. cummings' poem "[i carry your heart with me (i carry it in)]" in its entirety here, as well as an excerpt of "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas, both 20th century poets :^) i'm [@boneroutes](https://boneroutes.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you'd like to chat there, and please leave a comment if you feel inclined. again, thank you for reading, it really means a lot!

**Author's Note:**

> the next chapter should be up within the next week at the latest! you can find me on tumblr [@boneroutes](https://boneroutes.tumblr.com) in the meantime. thanks so much for reading, and please do leave a comment if you feel so inclined <3


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